Wherein I Whine...A Lot

We'll open this post with a note to self.
Dear Self,

In future, do not, under any circumstances, begin the hard slog through a highly ambitious writing project at the same time as you are taking classes that require a great deal of time and technical brain.  They will cancel themselves out, and you'll be stuck with a big zippo on both ends.  Not to mention the great big pile of loser you will feel like each and every day that ends in a zero.  Nobody wants that.

Sincerely,
Me

So, yeah.  Today, I'm feeling irritated with myself.  I have my logic book on one leg, my Kindle waiting for me to keep reading my own story so I can start editing it beside me, my java book letting off a terrifying, evil chortle next to it, and my revision notes looking all sad and pathetic across the bed.  On my other side is a basket of laundry that needs to be sorted, and straight ahead, a mirrored closet door that shows me how badly I need to exercise.  It's a *great* setup.

I was gaining traction, then momentum, finally, because we had some good news that might be making our near-future look brighter.  We were back to the waiting game, but I can live with that when I have so much I need to get done, anyway.

And then the mother-in-law broke her hip.  Or rather, the pins holding it together snapped in two.  So she has to have surgery on it.  Again.  This'll be the third time for this one fix.  She can't move without dissolving into a sobbing puddle of pain, so she needs help to get to the bathroom.  That help is the father-in-law, or, when he's at work, the Jeremelon.  The father-in-law started a new job a week and a half ago.  He works three or four days a week from 4pm to 4am.  Meaning he sleeps until 1 or 2 in the afternoon.  Meaning every morning and half of all evenings and overnight, her helper is the Jeremelon. It's not so bad when she lays in bed and reads or sleeps, which is really what she should be doing since she wore herself down so horribly at work.  But the days when she sits in the living room?  She does work.  Like, making important phone calls.  And she reads while watching HGTV.  And the second someone asks if they can change the channel, she flies into a nasty temper about how her options to do anything are limited, so she deserves to watch her program (and then immediately goes back to reading her book or doing her work).  And she gets angry when the berrykin shrieks, which, as a two-year old with a growing sense of humor and enjoyment of watching things fly, happens very often.  You know, because we should keep him from shrieking...because it's loud and disruptive.  In the living room.  Or even from the next room over.  And while you're here, she needs a tissue.  And a cup of coffee.  But not the coffee in the pot, that one over there.  And she should eat something, so would you mind making her a salad, from scratch?  But not with those ingredients that are already prepared, the ones you have to cut.  And while you're doing that, because you're not going fast enough, she supposes she would just have a protein bar.  And another cup of coffee.  And oh no!  The berrykin is climbing on that thing he climbs on all the time, and he MIGHT grab that paper she left out that's really, REALLY important, and you can't let him hurt it, because it's so important.  And so you control the rambunctious two year old, who throws a fit because he's two, and while you're busy explaining things to him so he will learn instead of just react, you ask him a question so he can feel like you're listening, and she responds for him.  At length.  Like you're asking because you're too dumb to understand and you're really asking him to find out his answer.  Never mind that you were the one who explained the concept to HER yesterday.  Never mind that you have discussed this topic several times with her.  So you get the toddler settled and go to the room to take a breath and get a hold on your temper, and suddenly SHE shrieks (because apparently, it's okay when she does it) like a knife is about to fall point-first into her lap because she's dropping her napkin.  And you here your husband ask his mother not to shriek because it only riles up the toddler more and it's hard on everybody else, which becomes an argument about how she has a right to do what she wants because it's how she copes, and then the husband leaves the room to throw stuffed animals at the wall of the playroom.  And then you swoop in to stop the berrykin from smacking himself in the face because he doesn't yet know how to handle his emotional response to other people getting upset, and he thinks he's the one in trouble, and your heart breaks.  So you steal him away for quiet time in the bedroom, which lasts about twenty minutes before he's shrieking and demanding to watch Shaun the Sheep again.  And when you get him settled in at that, you realize that single question about whether or not you and the husband could spend thirty minutes together playing a video game (because that's all you can afford to do, and there are no babysitters to watch both the toddler and the mother-in-law so you could even go for a quiet walk) became three hours of coping with chaos.

Her mom is coming to stay on Tuesday, for an unknown amount of time.  But she has hip problems, too, and isn't strong enough to lift the mother-in-law, so she can provide comfort and care, but we still won't be able to leave the house for longer than an hour.  Plus, that'll be six of us in one apartment.  And she'll be sleeping on the couch in the living room (apparently, she likes it).  So kiss goodbye all the sanity-retention hours after the mother-in-law goes to bed.  That leaves Jeremelon and I with the playroom after hours...but that's also where Jeremelon and his snoring sleep.  So if he goes to bed, I'm left with...uh...the bathroom?  Which means I'll be going to bed early, and getting up at the same time everyone else does, and never have time that doesn't first belong to Jeremelon's mother, because she has no respect for anyone else's schedule or needs or obligations, like school work.  (And writing?  Despite the fact that she reads pretty much nonstop if she's not eating or working, she has no respect for the actual writing process, and treats it like it's playing.)

Did I mention that I have three computer programs due each week for school, which require reading three chapters in very dense, often confusing textbooks?  And there's that writing project that I love, but haven't even managed to start writing the second novella for because there was so much going on BEFORE she broke her hip.  I have 80,000 words to write before June.  And then I have to edit all of them plus the 43,000 I already finished.  Three times over.  And I have to write critiques for other people's work in order to trade and get some beta reader opinions since apparently, very few of my acquaintances have any interest in reading (which wouldn't be a big deal, except, you know, strapped for time...).  That's not including all the marketing I have to do, and learn to do.  Or putting together a portfolio and finding and applying for day jobs because Jeremelon hasn't gotten any interest from the two jobs that invited him to an interview (not that there have been that many, because he's been busy being the stay-at-home parent while I write, and now all of the above).  And summer is coming!  And I really need to get healthier, which means time to exercise (also part of sanity-retention).

Today, I'm having a hard time keeping my snorkel above water.  I feel like I need a plan to make this situation manageable, but then I realize there isn't a fix for it.  The mother-in-law is needy and unbending.  I have sympathy for her pain and compassion for her situation, and I feel like a horrible person most of the time because despite that sympathy and that compassion, I have a hard time caring enough to help her.  If she was at all pleasant to any of us, it would be easier.  If she ever treated us like individual adults instead of a collective of servants, I wouldn't mind.  If she would ever express herself calmly or explain her problems - like, communicate at all - and listen to a word anybody else said, we could make things better.  But she won't.  Maybe she can't.  I don't know.  What I know is that any attempt to compromise is futile.  That's where Jeremelon gets his black-and-white thinking from, because she's been this way his whole life.  So even though I need to improve it, I can't.  Literally can't, because she would have to get on board with SOMETHING.

So for you readers in Colorado, I might be in town soon with the berrykin!  (And if you're read this far, I apologize for what is no doubt a sudden depression now layered over your day...but thanks for letting me vent!)